


Chasing Meteors

by Cloudy_Serendipity



Series: Poop Train Anecdotes [4]
Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Blood and Violence, Borderlands: Borderlands 2, Camaraderie, Canon-Typical Violence, Dirty Needles, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Drug Withdrawal, Existential Crisis, Explosions, F/M, Gun Violence, Inner Dialogue, Mental Anguish, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mild Language, References to Addiction, References to Drugs, Self-Sacrifice, Sexual Content, Sharing Needles, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2020-03-29 22:08:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19028911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cloudy_Serendipity/pseuds/Cloudy_Serendipity
Summary: Krieg and Maya set out on a mission to find sanctuary, the last stronghold of the crimson Raiders.  Krieg has some issues, but then again, when does he not?  After a few not-to-plan events, they find themselves chasing moonshots to the doomed secret base in order to deliver a power core that will save the day.The Crimson Raiders are non-too-happy having a psycho in their midst and force Maya to make a choice.  But when the unthinkable happens, Maya and Krieg help with their plan to save the city.Nothing ever goes according to plan, however, and some last minute heroics are needed to thwart the regrettably alive Handsome Jack.When the dust settles, will Krieg and Maya be allowed a place in The Crimson Raiders?  Will they stay together?Sanctuary?  Krieg was sure he’d already been to that place.  Knew the feeling of belonging and home.  He’d been there twice; found sanctuary in the wet heat between the siren’s thighs and in the sweat drenched valley between her breasts.  Sanctuary, where her every sigh was like a song to his nerves, and every touch was a fire in the hearth of his soul.That was quite good, for you.





	1. Out of Sorts

**Author's Note:**

> Part 4 of Poop Train Anecdotes is based around the 'finding sanctuary' mission in Borderlands 2, also with some tweaks from other missions. I wanted to show more of the mercurial nature of Krieg's relationship with The Little Man, I really enjoy they way they fight against each other when I imagine them.
> 
> I'm trying to maintain some continuity between the series parts but I'm inevitably going to slip up somewhere, please don't hate me.
> 
> As always, Gearbox et al. own everything but the fuck-ups I make. There are no original characters in this one.

The frozen tundra of Marrowfield held little appeal for Krieg but the siren said they had to go there because… reasons.  He had no interest in what the reasons were but had a whole lot of interest in her.  Blue was everything and he’d follow her to the very edge of the universe.

The Little Man had tried to explain the need for this trip but since that time where he killed but didn’t kill Piss-ant Jack, Krieg and his inner voice had been a little estranged.  He was ashamed of himself, but rather than accept it, he acted all petty and angry.  Admitting that The Little Man had saved him was difficult.  Krieg hated that vulnerability.

 

“We’re looking for a guy called Reiss.”  The siren said, scanning the area with her ECHO.  “He’s probably dead already, but he has something we need.”

Krieg failed to see why they needed anything but each other and a whole bunch of guns but she had insisted and he caved.

 

The electrostatic cactuses had proved to be entertaining.  Krieg accidentally backed into one during a fight with a bullymong and the resulting shock had made him squeal with painful excitement.  So, he did it again.  And again.

“If you go down I’m gonna let you bleed out.”  Maya said with a bemused smirk.  She got frustrated with him sometimes but then she’d soften as if he was in some way endearing.

 _Don’t annoy her._   The Little Man chastised.

But of course, in Krieg’s petulant state, he’d done the exact opposite.  He kicked one of the cactuses so hard his boot got caught on the spikes and the damn thing kept shocking him until he hit the ground and practically pissed himself.

Maya shoved him free, cursing under her breath.  Dutifully she healed him.

 _You’re acting like a baby.  She’s not your damn nanny, so stop making her babysit you._   The Little Man rattled his mental confines.  _She’ll decide we’re not worth the effort and leave us behind._

Krieg actually felt a pang in his gut.

_Do you want to lose her?_

“Stop it!  Keep you down with a knife to our throat!”  Krieg growled through gritted teeth.

 _I’ll take that as a ‘no’_.  The Little Man’s voice tasted like smugness in his head.

“You good?”  Maya looked concerned.  She knew he hadn’t been himself lately.

“NIPPLE SALADS!”   He enthused, jumping to his feet.

Since that business at Overlook and also at the Happy Pig, when she’d almost killed him whilst fucking him dry, Maya had checked on him more and more often.  The fission between the man and his internal companion was obvious, and she was naturally worried.

 

“Hey, Krieg!”  Maya called to him from a crouched position by a massive rock formation.  She had run on ahead while he had distracted himself by looting the green-hued piles of frozen Bullymong shit that were dotted around the landscape.  “ _That_ is Windbreak Camp.  One of those bandits has a power core we need and…”

Krieg knew exactly what she needed from him.  He let out a blood curdling scream and broke cover, running down into to the camp, practically braying on the rocks with his buzzaxe.

“We need to be a bit stealthy.”  She finished with a groan.

Maya covered him with her sniper while he hacked his way through the first waves of bandits that emerged from buildings in the camp.

“I CAME TO SHANK AND SMILE!”  Krieg laughed, yanking his blade from the skull of his latest victim.

 _You came to ruin everything!_   The Little Man complained.  _Hang back. Wait for Maya._

Krieg rushed in, getting himself surrounded.  The sea of sneering faces triggered his rage and he swung his hefty weapon in circles to push them back.

Blue light surrounded two bandits as they were lifted into the air, creating a gap for him to escape through.

_Take the out!_

Instead, Krieg pulled out an incendiary SMG and went to work on the group of bandits, ignoring his inner voice.

_Fine!  Get us killed.  But you protect her, no matter what._

Regardless of how petty Krieg was acting, he would always put the siren first.  She fought more fiercely than anything he’d ever seen that had any business being that beautiful.  She was his deadly angel.  He and The Little Man always had and always would agree on that.

 

Maya ghosted up into the upper levels of the camp to clear out all the enemies while Krieg tussled with a Badass Nomad down in the camp proper.  The bulky foe was taking longer to kill than Krieg would have liked and the psycho was already getting bored with how little blood there was.

A loud crack peeled through the camp as a bullet took the nomad through the neck.  Blood sprayed over Krieg’s recently cleaned psycho mask as the nomad expired before his eye.  Not that he cared about the mess, in fact he preferred it, all the more because it was a gift from her.

“I got the core!”  She called before jumping down from the walkway above.  “Time to go find Sanctuary.”

 

Sanctuary?  Krieg was sure he’d already been to that place.  Knew the feeling of belonging and home.  He’d been there twice; found sanctuary in the wet heat between the siren’s thighs and in the sweat drenched valley between her breasts.  Sanctuary, where her every sigh was like a song to his nerves, and every touch was a fire in the hearth of his soul.

_That was quite good, for you._

“Hey!  Muscles!”  Maya snapped her fingers in front of his face.  “Where the hell are you going?”

He’d zoned out back there, driving aimlessly around the tundra.  She’d given him coordinates but he’d gotten lost in a collection of feelings he barely realised he knew.

_You were remembering._

The Little Man knew.  He’d see glimpses of their past and remembered what home was, what family was.  Krieg had some fucked-up remembrance of those things, but he applied them to things the here and now, like the siren.  She represented those feelings to him, and a lot more.

“Shank my spleen and call me Betsy!”

They were lost.  He’d got turned around somehow, the side-track his train of thought took into the shadows of his memories had blurred out all else.  They were lucky he’d not driven them off a cliff instead of over a precariously balanced bridge.

“This looks like the entrance to Frostburn.”  Maya frowned, getting out of the buggy.

Rakk were circling above them.  It was only a matter of time before they attacked.

Krieg saw the snow skaggs before Maya did; she was busy scouring the maps for a viable path out of the frozen maze they were stuck in.  The pelt of the mutts glistened pale blue and he couldn’t help but think how arty they would look splashed with the vital red of fresh blood.

“Jameson Pillock has nothing in me!”  He giggled as he brought his axe to the first skagg, splitting its gaping maw all the way down to its ribcage.  The wet squelch made Maya cringe but she didn’t look away from her maps.  She trusted him to take care of her while she was busy, and that was a wonder to him.

_That would be Jackson Pollock, you heathen._

When he killed a second snow skagg there was a horrific wail and a mangled-looking bandit rat rushed them both.  His ECHO told him the foe was called ‘Boll’.  Maya snatched him up in her phaselock while Krieg plugged at the floating meatbag with his incendiary SMG.  Rakk began to divebomb them and they were suddenly a little overwhelmed.  Maya hopped in the buggy and used the rocket turret to bring down the airborne menaces whilst running over as many skaggs as possible.

“ROOOOAAAAD KILLLLLL!”  Krieg cackled as skagg corpses went flying in all directions.  The bandit rat called Boll just didn’t’ want to die, enraged by the death of his pets, he fought Krieg until the Psycho was about ready to light the fuse on his rage and blow this whole fucking place to ribbons.

When Boll turned his attention to Maya, Krieg saw red.

“NO ONE SERENADES THE BLUE ANGEL WITH PAIN POETRY AND BLOODY TORMENT, BUT MEEEE!”   He roared, burying his hefty blade between the shoulders of the distracted rat, pitching it face-first into the churned-up snow.

“Aww shucks, muscles.”  Maya teased.  “You came to my rescue.”

“He defend, he attack, but most of all he eats the rakk!”

Maya laughed heartily.  She was often amused by his jokes, or at least she thought they were jokes.  Sometimes they were.  Some of the time, even he didn’t know what he meant.  Mostly he felt something and the words just came out.  Who knew what kind of mental cypher his thoughts and emotions went through to come out his mouth as they did.

The loot dropped by the dead Boll included a grenade mod and an ECHO recorder.  Maya played the file, listening hard through the static and background noise.  Krieg didn’t pretend to know what was going on, people talking was boring and hard to follow.  He lived in soundbites and moments of gore-filled insanity, he more often than not lacked the clarity for the subtle nuances of human interaction.  He was lucky that Maya took the time to figure him out as much as she had.

 _There’s another siren._   The Little Man translated.  _Lilith._   _She was supposed to have perished but that ECHO proves she survived.  We have to get this to the Crimson Raiders._

“Red men.”  Krieg grunted, paraphrasing.

“You’re right.”  Maya nodded resolutely.  “This is just another reason why we have to get to Sanctuary.”

_Good job!_


	2. H is for Haemorrhoids

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Krieg and Maya chase moonshots to find Sanctuary ready to fall. They succeed in saving the day with the newly acquired power core and ready themselves to finally meet The Crimson Raiders.

Elpis and the Hyperion moon-base rose in the sky as Krieg and Maya traversed the landscape searching for signs of Sanctuary.  The mission had been a bit of a bust, and the supposed coordinates for the Crimson Raider stronghold had proven elusive.  The earthquakes that shuddered through the planet had increased in frequency, causing land slides and the emergence of stronger, more irritated, enemies.

Krieg enjoyed the chance to exert himself and show off his brutality to the siren.  Blue would often get swept up in his enthusiasm, joining him readily to clear out whatever group of foes he’d instigated a fight with this time.

Since her kidnapping, Maya had always wanted to be on the move, reluctant to remain in one place long enough to get comfortable.  It was surprising then, that she sought Sanctuary with such gusto.  Was it not everything she wanted to avoid?

_There’s safety in numbers there._   The Little Man always had insight into her motives.  Krieg relied on that more than he’d care to admit.  _And other vault hunters._

Krieg felt what could only be described as jealousy.  He enjoyed having her all to himself, and The Little Man did too.  Why couldn’t it always be the two of them?  What if she no longer wanted them around?  What if she decided she didn’t want to maintain the intimacy they had out here, just the two of them, where no one would judge?

 

“This is Handsome Jack!  Reminding you all not to worry your pretty little heads about those earthquakes!”  Jack announced, planet-wide, over the ECHO comms array.  “With every tremor, my drills get closer to the vault, to freedom, order, and safety for all of us.”  He proclaimed further.  “Except you asshats in Sanctuary.  I have a little something special for you all.”

Krieg roared at the sky until his lungs burned.  Fat lot of good it did.  There was only Maya and skaggs for miles around to hear him venting.  He hated that prick with a passion he usually reserved only for murder.

_Close enough._   The Little Man said dryly.  _Even I want to murder that maniac._

A loud boom sounded way up in the atmosphere, followed by several more.  Krieg knew that noise almost as well as he knew his own heartbeat.  Moonshots launched from that giant ‘H’ in the sky.

“Aitch is for haemorrhoids!”  He chuckled to himself.

Sometimes Krieg wished there were more of them, different letters like alphabet soup so he could spell out words like ‘dook’ and ‘boob’.  Really he just liked the double-o words best.  Blood, that was his favourite.  Poop, that was another one.

“Come on!”  Maya snatched his hand and dragged him towards the buggy.  “This is our chance.”

Since their failure to locate the coordinates for Sanctuary they’d been at a loss, searching for anyone or anything that could point them in the right direction.  Maya had said that ‘an easily found secret base wasn’t a secret base at all but a clusterfuck just waiting to happen’.  As things stood it looked like Sanctuary was having one of those epic clusterfuck kind of days.

 

The moonshots weren’t cargo or troop containers but explosive missiles designed to annihilate Pandora’s surface and raze Sanctuary to the ground.  Krieg could easily admit to himself that destruction on that kind of scale would be entertaining to watch but Blue had insisted that they were going there to help save the place.

“What’s a huge power core like this for if it’s not for a shield generator?”  She winked at him.

Her excitement was infectious and soon he found himself driving full-throttle towards the destructive path of those moonshots, laughing as they ploughed through skaggs and bandits on their road to rescue Sanctuary, spraying mess and body parts all over the buggy.

“YOUR LIVER MAKES A PRETTY HOOD ORNAMENT!”  The psycho called back over his shoulder to the corpse of a bandit still tumbling in the dirt.

 

They finally crossed the path of the moonshots, deep craters in the earth leading towards an old abandoned Dahl corporation mining facility.

_Of course.  How could we have been so obtuse?_   The Little Man would have sighed if he could.  _There’s a town built on top of that ship, if memory serves._

Krieg couldn’t even begin to hope to articulate the knowledge The Little Man held in his head so instead he went for:

“MINE, ALL MINE!”

 

The trajectory of the moonshots had become fixed now and the sole focus of impact was the old Dahl ship.

“There!”  Maya pointed ahead.  “Hurry!”

They raced forward with Krieg swerving the buggy between craters and crevasses, trying to keep the vehicle upright.  The last thing they needed was to make the journey on foot if the buggy was destroyed.

 

Sanctuary was surrounded by a huge dome shield which was taking the brunt of the attack but some of explosions were causing the taller buildings to start to crumble, just the shockwaves in the air dealing enough damage to reduce the town to rubble.  The shield was failing and they had little time left before the Hyperion moonbase succeeded in bringing Sanctuary to its knees.

“Crimson Raiders!”  Maya hailed them on her ECHO.  “We’ve got the power core you’ve been searching for.”

“Great!  Report to Lieutenant Davis, inside the front gates.  Double time, vault hunter!”  Roland issued his orders and Maya directed Krieg to where they needed to go.

Krieg liked it when she took charge.

 

The gates were tall and concrete, designed to keep most things out but they’d taken a lot of damage from the moonbase’s main cannon.  Lt. Davis was just inside the gateway which was open and waiting for them.

Ditching the buggy outside, they followed Davis up a flight of concrete stairs to a secured room connected to various parts of the city by thick electrical cables.  There, the shield generator was struggling to cope, the existing power cell almost depleted.

 

It was easy for Krieg to get swept up in Maya’s urgency.  He helped her couple the new power cell, his huge hands making light work of the bulky clasps.  He was so focused on his task he barely registered the booms, shakes, and dust falling from above.  Maya connected the cell while Krieg parted the grasping claws, and the generator whirred to life, smoothing out the uneven chugging noise to a consistent pitch.

_Was it really that easy?_   The Little Man was sceptical.

“Good job Krieg!”  Maya grinned, stroking her hand slowly down his arm from shoulder to wrist.

Her touch sent a shiver down his spine.  It was eerie how well attuned to her he was, that she had conditioned him to her touch already.  He had learned so far that every touch from her was a good touch, even the hurty ones, because they lead to something he wanted to feel again and again.

Her fingers entwined with his briefly before her hand fell away, leaving him staring after her.  The sway of her hips brought back a memory that had his balls tingling.  All he wanted now that the mission was done was to have her lead him someplace where, alone and confident, she’d fuck him blind.

_Now is not the time._

“Shhh!  She eats our soul.”  He whispered, following behind, shamelessly tugging at the crotch of his pants.


	3. Ditch the Crazy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Krieg and Maya finally get inside Sanctuary where they meet Lilith. Maya is a little star-struck by the presence of The Firehawk but when Lilith isn't accepting of Krieg, Maya is left with a choice.
> 
> The psycho understands and tries to do the right thing. At the end of the day he helped his Gore Maiden find a place to call home and he's happy with that. And, after all, Sanctuary is now safe... Or is it?

Sanctuary was bigger than The Little Man had thought.  His memories of the Dahl mining ship were incomplete, and Krieg had nothing to add to the subject.  The psycho scuffed his boots on the kerb surrounding the circular dais in the very centre of the town, silently watching and listening.

“That’s Lilith.”  Maya had hissed at him when they first saw the red lady.  “She’s a siren too.  Oh, man!   _The_ Firehawk!  In the flesh.”

This was the most rapt Krieg had seen her, other than when…

_Now is not the time._

He grunted, shifting his hips to loosen the constricting tingle in his groin.

 

The red lady was stern-looking, angry even, as she walked towards them.  Not like Maya who looked stern in a completely different way.  Krieg wasn’t sure exactly how that worked but it did.  In his head it just felt different.

“Thanks for bringing me those ECHO’s.”  The red lady spoke to Maya but gave Krieg a distrusting side-eye.  “I could really do with Hyperion not knowing I’m still alive.”

“YOU DIE EVERYDAY!”  Krieg bellowed.

There was commotion as guns were raised and Maya was suddenly stood in front of him.  His human shield.

“WAIT!”  Maya screamed.  “He means you live to fight another day.”  She was breathing heavily, rapidly surveying the situation.  “His brain is fucked and the words come out wrong.”

“He’s actually a psycho?  For god’s sake!”  Red was furious.

Maybe she hadn’t realised what he was until then.  It wasn’t the first time that had happened.

“Yeah he’s actually a psycho.”  Blue frowned.

_That’s what Maya thinks of us?  That we’re retarded?  Just a stupid psycho?_

“But he’s my friend.”  She softened.  “Saved my life more times than I saved his.”

_Oh, thank the sweet lord on high.  She doesn’t think we’re worthless._

“He can’t stay.”  Red crossed her arms.

All guns were still pointed at him.  He wasn’t bothered, if they started shooting he’d rip their arms off and beat them with the wet ends.  He’d recently discovered how much he enjoyed that.

“He goes, I go.”  Maya delivered the ultimatum and also crossed her arms.  The two sirens faced-off against one another.

“Then you both go.”  Red was firm.  “Thanks for the assist, and good luck.  If you decide to ditch the crazy then come back and see us.”

“Not likely.”  Maya grabbed Krieg’s hand and pulled him through the crowd to the town gates.

Krieg felt bad.  Guilt was a new emotion he’d learned when he’d met her and she’d begun to show him all the ways he was still human.  He didn’t like the feeling though.

_She wanted this so much, to be with other vault hunters, to have something she could call her own.  A place to be where there was community if she wanted it, friends if she needed them, and stability._   The Little Man’s insights usually right about Maya, he felt and understood her.

“Safety in numbers.”  Krieg stopped her just inside Sanctuary’s gates with the most coherent thing he’d said since Overlook.  It was simply a paraphrase of something The Little Man had said to him earlier but he understood.  It made sense.

“We’re a team, you and me.”  She stepped closer to him, resting her hands on his chest.  “Where you go, I go.  Wherever you can’t go, I’m not gonna stay.”

His hands automatically went to her hips; an instinct from The Little Man.  He didn’t want to leave her but he would if he had to, and he’d let her choose.

“Blue in the mine all mine!”  He sighed, defeated.

Maya’s reaction was to throw herself against his chest and plant a sweet kiss on his neck, just under his jawline.  It was the closest she could get to his face before she’d be kissing the mask.

_Hahaha!_   The Little Man was beside himself.  _You just told her to stay on the mining ship and she thought you told her she was yours.  This is brilliant.  I love you, ya big lug!_

Krieg huffed.  The Little Man often made him feel inadequate, but he never laughed at him.

_Just kiss the girl, god damn you._

Krieg held two fingers up to his mouth, the mask between, and laid them softly on Maya’s perfect blue lips.  The only kiss he could give her without losing the security of his face.

_Not bad, sir, not bad._

“You’re so fucking sweet, I wish I could ruin you right here and now.”  Her eyes burned with something dark and dangerous that had a wonderfully tight feeling growing low in his groin.  His pants started to get uncomfortable and he grunted softly at the feeling.

The fact that she allowed the touch sent an additional tingle fluttering in his gut, but the low cadence in her voice and the promise of _ruin_ , whatever that was, oh, he was practically drooling.

 

“So, Roland! You and your Crimson Raiders think you’re gonna escape the wrath of Handsome Jack, huh?  Well, I gotta tell you buddy, you’re dead wrong.”  Jack’s arrogant smugness rang out through all the speakers in Sanctuary.  “Time for operation trojan horse!”

For a moment it seemed as if Jack’s threat was unfounded.  The city of sanctuary held its breath.  Seconds stretched on until both Krieg and Maya felt their dread loosen in their guts, and then it happened; the declining hum of the shield generator as it cycled down coupled with the low _thunk_ of a fresh wave of moonshots.

Maya’s eyes went wide.

“Oh fucking hell!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter to move things along a little. The plan is to write this completely from Krieg's perspective (albeit third person) and with his internal dialog. Wish me luck XD


	4. Plan?  There is No Plan!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The residents of Sanctuary initiate Plan 'turn Sanctuary into a badass floating city in the sky' B, but when that fails there's always plan 'omfg this other siren is a badass motherfucker' C.
> 
> Krieg has a mini existential crisis and The Little Man fights to stop the inevitable.

Screams flooded the town square; Sanctuary was in full panic.  People were running into houses, alley ways, even the Crimson Raiders HQ just to find cover.  Red was in the centre, barking orders at a scrawny little mechanic in a pair of filthy overalls.

Rusted metal posts had sprouted out of the ground around the circular dais where Maya had her stand-off with The Firehawk, each of them had red blinking lights on the top.

“Scooter!”  Red snapped.  “We need the engines, NOW!”

Two men he recognised (trains and ice sprung to mind) were helping the mechanic to pump small handles on the posts, trying to prime the engines.  The only problem was that there were only three of them and there were five conduits.

“Muscles!”  Maya snapped Krieg out of his nervous daze.  “We gotta help.”

Her eyes beseeched him.  How could he deny her?

 

They ran in, words left unspoken as Red tracked their movement.  She nodded as he and Maya took their positions at the two unmanned breakers.

_They don’t want us but they want our help.  Typical._

“Once we’re off the ground I’ll warp us away.”  Lilith said resolutely, grasping two large purple crystals in her hands.

Even Krieg knew it was a risk.  Purple was a devil best left alone.  He felt it every day, the tick of addiction before his injectors gave him his daily dose of Eridium in the form of slag.  It wasn’t the only gift left to him by Hyperion, a fractured mind and an insatiable bloodlust came as part of the package.

It kept him alive - the purple goo - kept the pain real, kept him juiced.  Krieg could sympathise with the red woman, even as the euphoria of the Eridium slackened her face in a look of pure bliss, he knew… he knew the comedown was a killer.

_It’s none of our concern._   The Little Man didn’t try to hide his resentment.

“Purple pain pumpers!”  Krieg grumbled to himself.

 

With all five of the breakers manned, they managed to wind up enough charge to trigger the engines.  There was euphoria of a different kind now, even Maya was swept away in the success of their teamwork.  Cheering and high-fives all round.

Maya looked radiant, smiling big and a pep to her step; winning was a good luck for her.  Despite the shuddering of the ground beneath their feet and the exploding missiles in the air above, she looked better than all of the severed heads and Knoxx armoury loot caches Krieg had ever seen put together.

He reached for her and she went to him, giving him a quick hug and a weak punch on the arm.

“Good job, big guy.”  Her smile became shy all of a sudden.  Maybe it was the people around them looking at her, judging her.  Maybe because she was in the presence of her idol, she felt ashamed.

_Let’s get out of here before this thing takes off._

Krieg took her hand and a single step towards the exit.

Maya hesitated, looking back at Lilith.  Their arms stretched between them, slack but charged with more tension than a horny pair of teenage psycho midgets dry humping a shock barrel.

Krieg knew, she was choosing all over again.  Stay or go?  Him or her idol?  He hung his head, shoulders slumped, but he kept her hand and she hadn’t let go either.

“Hit it, Scooter!”  Red said roughly, her voice cracking.

_Once this thing flies…_

 

Sanctuary’s engines powered up, thrumming with increased frequency, until the ground around them seemed to buzz with energy.  Krieg could feel it chattering his teeth together, giving him a fuzzy feeling in his head, it almost felt peaceful.  If peaceful meant making your eyeballs itch.

Everyone seemed to have stopped, caught in the moment of watching and waiting, moonshots forgotten because this plan was going to save them all.  Explosions and crumbling buildings on the south side of the town were of no consequence, they were escaping now.  All they had to do was clear the surrounding ground and they’d be away, warped by the red siren’s power.

Krieg had to admit that he really wanted to see what she could do, and what the Eridium did to her.  Red was already glowing with its power as she crushed more purple crystals together, releasing their energy into her skin.  Her markings drew the power away to where she needed it.

 

The ground shuddered under the force of the engines, and the sound of rending concrete and steel was torturous, rattling Krieg’s teeth in his head.  Everyone waited, breaths held, anticipation running feverishly high.  The engines were tearing the town apart at the edges until they suddenly weren’t.

As the engines gave out so did Sanctuary’s hope.  What lift the Dahl ship had achieved became a short drop back to the ground.  The resulting shock broke windows and knocked people off their feet.

Lilith looked horrified, her face contorted in a painfully twisted mask of disbelief.

“Aw hell, plan ‘ turn Sanctuary into a badass floating city in the sky’ B, is a bust.  Naw what we gonna do?”  The scruffy dwarf said.

“You’re the mechanic, get them fixed.  We won’t survive if we stay here.”

Krieg shot Maya a glance.  He hoped she was ready to get the hell out of there with him but her face was dark and contemplative.  She looked down at her hands, the open claw-like rigidity in her fingers was a bit sinister, like she was drawing power from somewhere.

_Oh lord no!_   The Little Man panicked.  _She can’t.  It’ll kill her._

As always it took Krieg a few beats to catch up with his other voice.  She was going to try to save the city.  Even if the cost was her life?

_She’s not strong enough without Eridium._

“PURPLE IS THE DEVIL!”  Krieg shouted, angrily.  How dare The Little Man suggest he feed her to the purple hell.

“Can you lift this thing?”  The red siren shouted above the din of moonshots exploding the buildings at the edges of the town.

“I can try.”  Maya said, trying to draw more energy from around her.  “Some Eridium would be helpful right now though.”

She was unsure.  The Little Man saw it, Krieg saw it too, the niggling doubt betrayed by the lifting in the middle of her eyebrows, the thin line of her mouth.  She’d never used Eridium like Lilith did, and she was nervous.

“I’m out!  Used the last of my stash!”  Lilith said through gritted teeth as she kept herself and her power together.  “Can anyone give this woman some Eridium, crystals, inogts, hell even slag!”

_No!  No, she can’t!  You have to help her.  Stop her.  Anything but slag.  Look what it’s done to us, please stop her!_

The Little Man was frantic, making Krieg’s head hurt.  Help her?  Stop her?  They weren’t mutually inclusive terms.

“Krieg!  Help me!”  Maya sounded desperate.  Her face was drenched in sweat as she struggled to draw enough power to enclose the city’s core within her phase-lock.

His touch had always given her strength.  Was that what she was asking?

“It’s a good touch.”  He said, laying his gun hand on her bare skin.

She sighed, eyes rolling back as she drew from his strength.  The slag that flowed through his veins gave her power and soon her ball of radiant blue energy had sprung around the core of Sanctuary, engines and all.  It spread outward quickly until it was almost as large as the Lilith’s red sphere.

The ground shook again and the noise of tearing metal screamed in his ears.  Maya was growling fiercely, straining to keep control of the city as she pulled it up away from the ground.

Progress was slower once they’d reached the height at which the engine thrusters had given out, now Maya was fighting not just against gravity but against the pipes, concrete and ships anchors that were buried far underground.

 

Krieg felt weak, like that time… that time when…  Was that even there?  Was he even him then?  He couldn’t recall hearing The Little Man as he’d bled to out into unconsciousness.  Maybe he’d died then.  Maybe it wasn’t even his memory.  But that cold lethargy that crept along your veins, pulling you down into blackness – that’s how he felt now.

“I need more!”  Maya gasped.  “Don’t give up on my now muscles!”

He heard her voice, it was distant, a whisper.

Without the purple everything felt grey.  He was grey inside, not red or blue which were his favourites but grey.  Bland and dead, like nothingness.

“Hey!”  Maya screamed, pulling him back into focus for a brief moment.  “Fucking snap out of it!  I need you.”

 

Krieg was suddenly hyper aware of the flux of power that surrounded them.  It raised hairs on his skin he never knew he had.

Blue had asked him something.

_No!  You can’t!_

What had she asked him?

_I won’t let you._

“Your injectors!”  Maya screamed at him.  “I need them or we all die here today.”

_Please don’t.  I’d rather die that see her become like us._

She’d asked him.  Why would he ever deny her?  How could he?  Even The Little Man knew, she was everything.

_If you do this, there’s no going back._

There never was any going back.  There was only him and her, and the road ahead.  Whatever happened, her future lay here in Sanctuary.  He could see it now, clear as the first drops of blood in fresh driven snow.  And if he helped them maybe they’d let him stay, she’d make them let him stay.  Just maybe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realised that I've started identifying things more and more as colours with Krieg. I think maybe it's because he's a visuals kind of guy. If it gets annoying will somebody let me know, cheers.


	5. Sharing's Caring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Krieg makes the ultimate sacrifice, though he doesn't realise it at the time, and plan 'omfg this other siren is a badass motherfucker' C comes to fruition.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***Warning's apply to this chapter for references to drug use, addiction and withdrawal, and sharing needles/dirty needles.***
> 
> Tags and stuff have been changed for this.

The air was thick with tension, anticipation, hope – whatever it was it tasted funny to his brain, like the way acid elemental tingled on his tongue when he’d licked it off his guns.  Krieg couldn’t even say he’d tried it only once to see what it was like; he’d tried it many times, deciding that acid had a vintage scale depending on how many things it had melted before it got to his taste buds.

Sour.  That was how his brain felt with all the buzzing and panic.

 

Maya was staring at him.  The look in her eye was more than just a touch crazy, maybe she was more like him than he thought.

_She’s not crazy, she’s desperate._   The Little Man supplied bitterly.

He’d begged and clamoured for Krieg not to give her his Eridium slag injector but when Krieg had ripped it from his flesh, tearing out the jabber, The Little Man had fallen silent.  Unwilling to be part of such a heinous act of disregard for her wellbeing, The Little Man had retreated, only interjecting to be facetious.

“Krieg, please!”  Maya beseeched him as he held her delicate arm in his huge calloused hands, the jabber poised over her most prominent vein.

The jabber was dirty, a mixture of his blood and purple slag congealing around the fixtures.  It was supposed to be clean when it went in, he knew that, but he was between a rock and a hard place – maybe he should spit on it and wipe off the crud.

_That would make it_ so _much better._

Krieg’s gaze flitted between Maya’s face and the double-blue of her vein bulging underneath her markings.  She was resolute, anticipant, and pleading in her gaze.  What would happen to her when he plugged her in?  Would she change?  Would she survive the filth that was pumped through him constantly?  Would he survive without it?

 

The moment seemed to stretch on with Krieg in a little bubble with his gore maiden.  There were things going on around them; the red siren barking orders to the dirty midget mechanic to get the engines working again, people screaming as moonshots decimated more of the city, a weird sonorous and pumping music coming from a nearby bar.  But all Krieg could focus on was Maya.

Her face was hard and cool, none of the sweet sassiness or the easy smile that she usually showed him; she was vengeful and dark, and ready to rip some throats.

 

With his injector harness already on her back she was ready to go, she just waited on him to fit the damn thing.

_No going back after this._

He scratched her skin, pushing the needle into her arm as delicately as his sausage fingers would allow.  The jabber was long and robust, much too brutal for something as slender and precious as his Blue. 

The moment the pain hit her, Krieg watched her pupils contract down to pin pricks though her eyes never met his.  She panted through it, keeping still but tense as she held her power in flux, awaiting the boost she was about to receive.

Krieg strapped her in, securing the vambrace around her arm, double wrapping the straps because, well, because she was tiny and he was not.  Maya breathed through the sharp ache in her arm, puffing air out between pursed lips, only momentarily losing her control of the unsteady city.

Nervously she laughed as if the reality of the horror he lived daily wasn’t all that bad.  No big deal - that’s what that laugh said.  Piece of cake.

Was it though?

“Thanks, big guy.”  Her smile was coquettish as she finally met his gaze, and Krieg began to shiver.

He wondered if she could see him slipping, just from the look in his good eye.  Could she tell he was starting to fail without the life-giving slag?

_Of course she can’t.  She’s focused on one thing only._   The Little Man ridiculed.  _Saving this god forsaken shit hole._

 

The pump kicked in as soon as soon as the tech read her blood count, calculating the dose to bring her blood to slag ratio up to its only setting; Krieg’s.

_It’s going to kill her._

Whirring at her back, the contraption forced the putrid purple gunk into her arm drawing from her sweet lips an angry hiss.  The familiar sting Krieg was accustomed to must have felt like Varkid venom to her right now as it coursed its way through her body, burning and poisoning.

Weak and unable to keep himself upright, Krieg slumped to his knees, eyes fixed on Maya.  She looked torn.  Pain showed on her face and in the tension of her muscles but there was also euphoria, evident in the dilating of her storm grey eyes and in the sultry moan that trickled from her throat like an orgasmic sigh.  She was sky-rocketing up in waves of Eridium bliss caused by the pumping of his injectors, pushing her further, higher, faster.

Soon the pain was overshadowed by the sheer intensity of the power was gaining.  Krieg knew the feeling well although he was desensitised to the rush of it all now.  How many days, weeks, months, years?

_Too many._

Not enough.

Maya laughed again, this time darker, wilder.  She wrenched her arms up, jerking and jostling the city as she (and the ground beneath them) strained against the force of her power.  She was doing it.  Lifting them up.  Saving them.

Krieg smiled as he braced himself against the cold ground, hands planted as firmly as he could, gasping into the inside of his other face, now claustrophobically close.  His eye never left her, even as it darkened, blurring at the edge of his vision.

Grey.  Everything was turning grey.  The blue of her began to fade.  And the red woman too, she fell into monochrome, her mouth flapping like a flag in the breeze.

_Talking.  She’s talking._

“Yes!  Feel the power!  Suck it up.  Use it.  Push with all your hate, all your anger, everything you’ve got.”  Lilith chanted as she watched Maya, craven eyes hungered for the feeling she knew the blue siren now felt.  “Feel it inside you, exciting you, drawing you up.  Ride the wave, ride it hard.  Take it all and let it penetrate you, ravage you and use you up.”

_She’s talking… dirty?_

“Good!  Now fly this fucking thing!”

Tearing metal and concrete screamed loud enough to make Krieg feel nauseous.  He remembered what being sick felt like.  Remembered the yellow waves of pain that the pissy young girl siren had hit him with back in Fyrestone.  That felt like years ago now.

His stomach churned and he shook, sweating heavily as withdrawal shut his body down.  The onset was much faster than he had thought possible.  Even The Little Many thought maybe they’d have a couple of hours before his body began to give up, not mere minutes.

_You’ve doomed her to this fate.  I hope you’re proud._

“Endless pain and pureed brain.”  Krieg chuckled, remembering a threat The Little Man had once levied against him.  Perhaps now was the time to cash it in.

His quiet laugh turned into a hacking cough that started his body convulsing violently.  Everything hurt and his whole body itched, even his brain itched.  Especially his brain.

 

Red was the first to notice Krieg dying on the floor.

_How ironic.  She hates us yet she’s the only one who sees._

Krieg had felt dying before.  This felt similar but slower.  He could feel his energy sapping away, fuelling the horrific shivers that threatened to shake his bones apart.  He was simultaneously cold and hot, sweating from every single inch of his skin.  He left like maybe even his eyeball was sweating.

_Those are tears, idiot._

 

“Axton!”  Red called, turning her head a little but not looking away from the prone form of the broken Psycho by Maya’s feet.  “Little help?”

The soldier came jogging up, eager to please.

“What do you ne-oh god!  Really?”  Axton’s reaction distracted Maya from her task.

“Krieg!”  Maya looked frantically between Lilith, the twisted mess of psycho on the ground, and the familiar face of the Soldier she’d met one fateful afternoon on a Pandorean train that went ‘Kaboom!’.

“We’ll get him!  We’ll get him.  Just focus on getting us airborne.”  Lilith tried to reassure her.  “Axton, so help me god!”

“Right.”  The soldier seemed to hesitate.

“Help him, med syringes, whatever!  Just fix him.”

 

When the healing jabbers didn’t work well enough to get him up, Axton was perplexed.

“He needs this!”  Maya looked pointedly down to her strapped arm.  “He needs slag.”

The city shuddered , dipping down with a nauseous jerk.

“Focus!”  Lilith screamed.

“Don’t you _dare_ let him die!”  Maya threatened, before screwing her eyes shut and doubling her efforts.

Screaming out a war cry, Maya tore the whole city out of the ground.  The anchors snapped with a deep metallic wail that brought a chill to her skin.  Vault dwellers and gargantuan monsters had nothing on this sound, it penetrated to the core of her like a sonic boom.  Then they were rising, the downward pull of the force she exerted on the city made everyone sway on their feet.  Except Krieg.  He was fucked and they all knew it

With a smirk the red siren tossed a rusted old repeater at the soldier

“Shoot him!”  She said flatly.

“Seriously?”  Axton said, wide eyed.  “She said…”

“I heard what she fucking said!”  Lilith was furious.  “Do you follow orders or not, soldier?”

“Yeah, I follow orders.”  He said without hesitation.  “Just n-”

“Good!”  Lilith cut him off.  “Now put him out of his goddamn misery!”

_So this is what it comes down to.  Helpless and crumbling in a shit heap of a city built on the defunct carcass of a ship once owned by a now extinct corporation.  So low even the ground can barely hold us up, so utterly spent that we’ve got nothing left to give but our shared life.  All the things we’ve seen and the things we’ve done, well, the things_ you’ve _done…”_   The Little Man made the most of Krieg’s unconditional silence.  _“And we’re finally going to meet our maker at the hands of a lacky for a petty bitch who can’t see what we’ve done for this place, and for Maya.  We always said we would die for her.  Now it’s our reality._

Krieg shook and gasped.  Who knew he’d be so dependant on his injectors that he’d fall apart this easily.  With them he was formidable.  Without them he was just meat.  Grey, shuddering meat.  No better than the weak Hyperion scum he’d killed so many of in this life, no better than skags or rakk, no better than dirt.

But it wasn’t over yet.  He could always reconstruct at the nearest New-U, couldn’t he?

_Not happening.  Our echo is tied in with the kit Maya has.  There’s no surviving this death, buddy._

 

Krieg took one last look at his siren, choosing to focus on her rather than the gun that was already aimed at him.

She glowed and pulsed, iridescent pinks and blues coursing over her intricate markings, a mixture of her own power and that which he had given her.  She had her face screwed up like a bullymong gonad, all creases and straining veins.  Even like this she was beautiful to him.

Distantly Krieg was aware of a deep rumbling beneath him, the stuttering misfire of Sanctuary’s engines as they were coaxed to life.  He felt lighter, no longer pushed into the ground by the force of Maya’s phase-lock.  He managed to lift his head enough to look at the soldier whose gun was trained on him.  The man was fighting with his conscience.

_Not long now._

With a gut wrenching lurch the ground shifted sideways.  No, not sideways but _like_ sideways.  Everything twisted around for a brief moment before suddenly it was all stable and quiet.  No booming explosions overhead, no screaming and crying, only the occasional stutter of the engines and the thundering of Krieg’s heart leaked through to him.

One breath.  The soldier took.  Two breaths.

A loud cheer made the man jump and he reflexively pulled the trigger.  One bullet was all it took.  Krieg closed his eyes and waited for the grey to fade into black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know, I'm a sucker for a cliff-hanger. Sorry not sorry XD
> 
> Crazy workload lately and I'm away for some much needed R&R next week so I wanted to get this up before I go. Appologies if there are mistakes, feel free to let me know if any jump out.
> 
> Thanks for all you guys sticking with me on this journey, and with the series, I have the warm and fuzzys from all the support. You're all awesome!


	6. Purple Pain Pumper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Krieg finds himself in a lab, of sorts, and encounters an new calibre of scientist. This one is a different kind of crazy and has a penchant for imperiousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a little filler chapter to move the story on a bit. I'm not very quick at writing and I'm in a bit of a hole in terms of getting the story to an end point I'm happy with. I'll get there eventually though, so thanks for your patience, lovely comments and kudos. It really means a lot that you guys like my stuff <3

Pain.

 

It’s funny how different pain is.  No two types feel the same.  Despite it all just being the result of neurons firing in the brain, pain was like taste.  And sometimes it was like sound.

The sharp loudness of the pain caused by bullets wasn’t anything like the rolling throb of slag.  But he felt them both; the precise and bitter burn of localised pain in his leg was dulled ever-so-slightly by the wave of diffuse aching that coursed through him moments after.

Purple bloomed across his skin as the elemental effect of slag took hold, mellow and smooth and oh so good…  If Krieg wasn’t dying, he might have mustered a semi for this pain combination.

 

“What the actual fuck!”  Maya’s raging brought Krieg back into focus.

“Humour me, okay?”  The smug voice of the red siren said.  “Just don’t drop us just yet.”

“If he dies you’re all gonna wish you’d let Jack destroy this place before we even got here!”  Maya growled, casting frantic glances down at Krieg.

_She’s scared._   The Little Man said quietly, underneath the pain.  _She knows this could be it for us._

“Shoot him again.”  Lilith instructed.  “Just keep him slagged until we’re done.”

“The bullets will kill him soon.”  Axton answered back.  “I can’t keep him slagged indefinitely.”

“Then throw out your turret, _soldier_.”  The sneer with which the red siren spoke almost dripped with disappointment.

 

The next bullet into Krieg’s flesh doubled the pain but the soldier kept it localised to Krieg’s left leg, effectively crippling the psycho.

_That’s so we can’t come for him if we rage out and go for the kill.  Smart.  Logical._

Mechanical whirring and the sound of hydraulic pistons had Krieg swinging his head looking for the source.

Axton’s turret unpacked itself, motor running.  The gun swept the area for threats as the glowing red aura of the equipped healing station pulsed out, bathing Krieg in its tingly warmth.

Energy flowed into him, filling him with life.  The contrast had him caught between elation and despair, holding him on the cusp of death.

Another bullet sent a fresh explosion of pain into his already ruined meat.  More slag took the edge off the acuteness of it, sending a slow easy push of dull ache over his body.  He could feel himself building power only to have it ebb away when the elemental effect dissipated.  It was like it was teasing him, taunting him, just keeping him dosed enough to keep the shakes away.

 

“Scooter!”  Red shouted, irritated and scowling.  “Now would be a good time to fix this fucking thing.”

“I got everythin’ primed.  Y’all get ready naw.”  Scooter’s voice was close by but Krieg couldn’t see the filthy grease monkey.

“So help me god, Scooter, you’re gonna meet the firehawk any second now.”

“Not that mass-murderin’ bounty huntin’ sonofabitch!”

“SCOOTER!”  Lilith screamed at him.

The filthy grease monkey scrambled, mumbling to himself as he flipped switches and turned dials on the main control column.

“This is one of them moments.”  He took a deep breath and rubbed two live wires together like he was hotwiring a buggie.  “CATCH A RIIIIIDEEEE!”

The engines shuddered to life, making the whole city judder.  Loose concrete crumbled down in plumes of dusty grey as one by one the engines caught and revved.

Another slagged bullet jolted Krieg.  Now lucid enough to register his surroundings, saw the relief on Red’s face as the last engine stabilised.

“Awww Yeahhhh!”  Scooter drawled.

“Nice work.”  Lilith patted his shoulder heavily.  She turned to Maya with an approving look.

Krieg could see the toll this was taking on his gore maiden.  Sweat dripped from her brow, deep frown lines burrowed into her normally smooth skin, and her mouth was contorted into a silent snarl.  Maya still held the city in her grip, working with the engines until she was told it was safe.  But the hatred in her glare, the anger towards her idol, that fierceness with which she’d threatened them all if he died…

_We are loved._

 

The dark rings around Maya’s eyes and the purple undertone to her skin were from the slag.  She shook with her exertions, no longer feeling the exquisite rushing high of her first use, but feeling the dogged weariness of power receding.

“Slowly does it.”  Red spoke softly, coaxing Maya to gradually lessen her hold on the city.  “Gently pull it back.  Good.”

Maya slumped to her knees, jolting the city as the last of her control left the floating mass.  The engines whirred harder but kept the city aloft.

Red injected Maya with a health jabber and stroked her hand fondly through Maya’s hair.  “You did great.”

“Help him.”  Maya begged, with tears in her eyes, breath hitching in her throat.

Maya started to pull on the rusty vambrace that was crudely strapped around her arm.  She fumbled it in her panic, hissing in pain as the jabber pulled against her flesh.

“Nobody kills me, but me!”  Krieg grumbled earning a weak laugh from her blue lips.

“What he said.”  Red smirked.  “C’mon.”

Red helped unwind the straps and pull the thick, long jabber from deep in Maya’s vein.  The skin was bruised, with deep purple tendrils threading up her arm, the first signs of slag infection spreading up along the path to her heart.  It looked nasty, even Krieg could see, the slag had affected her far more quickly than he thought.

_See?_ The Little Man spat bitterly. _She’s going to become a slag fiend._

Krieg couldn’t fight the wave of guilt, but it had been what she wanted.  She begged him for his injector.  Begged him to help her save Sanctuary.  She had asked and Krieg, well Krieg would give her anything.

_That doesn’t make it right._

 

 

The incessant babbling voice of a woman tending to his wounds pulled Krieg’s focus away from his internalising.  He hadn’t realised he’d been moved to a medical facility.

_It’s a lab._   The Little Man supplied.  _Always with the damn labs._

Krieg had snapshots of memories of a lab, deep in a Hyperion research facility.  It had been where he was made, or at least where he was broken and remade.

“Disgusting!”  Dr Patricia Tannis groaned as she handled his injector cuff in her gloved hands.

Short brown hair and a pinched look of distain.  Her certain superiority was palpable and her annoyance filled the air around her with tension.  She didn’t like anything but herself and was certainly irritated by the large presence of a prone psycho laid out on her workbench.

 

Tannis liked to talk to herself.  _A lot._

“Of all the things to dump on me.”  She muttered as she cleaned the crud from around the jabber.  “Failed Hyperion experiments and filthy slag-encrusted apparatus, though I admit, it does look intriguing.  I wonder…”  She adjusted the overlapping lenses on her goggles to get a closer look at the vambrace.  “No!  Absolutely not.  Heinous thing!”

“Just plug him back in.”  Axton said from the doorway.  “Lil wants him back up and fighting.”

Tannis went off into a hushed tirade about how the Crimson Raiders were slave drivers and how she wished she was back at her old lab, but then again she’d been in danger and they’d saved her.  She missed her vault research, and she certainly missed the lack of judgemental and inferior interferers.

 

Krieg moaned when his jabber was shoved unceremoniously back into the hole in his arm.  Kept open by continuous use, his flesh accepted the thick needle easily.  The comfortable tightness of his vambrace was a boon, the familiar sting of the needle a joy, and the deep aching stretch of his vein around the robust jabber was an absolute delight.  Compared with the pathetic and whimpering agony he’d felt shaking the life out of him right down to the bones when he’d given his injector to Maya, it was _heaven_.

_Maya!_   The Little Man latched on to the thought of her.

Krieg hadn’t seen her or heard them talk about her since they’d carted him off, toes dragging against the dust strewn concrete, into Tannis’s dingy lab.  It was the first lab he’d seen with washing machines in.  It was weird.  Tannis was weird.  But who was he to judge.

_Where is Maya?  Is she okay?  Why isn’t she here with us?_   The Little Man was both worried and irked.  _You’re responsible for this.  She better not be addicted, like Lilith.  Or worse.  Like us._

Krieg tried to drown out the whining voice in his head.  It was like a squeaking wheel going round and round and round, wearing him down.  Each time he snapped yielded a punch in the head, jolting The Little Man into silence for a brief moment before his whining continued.

“I mean…”  Tannis looked down her nose, mouth downturned, as she checked Krieg’s injector, ensuring a good fit.  “Some people – who are not me – think that slag experimentation is immoral.”  She murmured absently.  “But the possibilities…”

“Are you done?”  Axton tapped his foot impatiently.

“Yes, yes, get this foul creature out of my face.”  She dropped Krieg’s arm in a flourish of disgust.

 

The pump of his injector beeped once as the device read his blood.  The moment seemed to stretch on forever, anticipation adding a twitching edge to his already itchy flesh and restlessness.  The slag from the gun had worn off too long ago for his liking, and the shivers were creeping back.

Whirring at his back made him jump with a thrill.  He’d been uncharacteristically quiet since he’d sacrificed himself to Maya’s cause but as the pump began pushing life-giving slag into his arm, Krieg began to laugh.

Light warmth flooded up his arm, diffusing through his body, sending a rush through him not unlike the first time.  Maybe he should deprive himself more often if it felt this good to slip back into the arms of addiction.

Lay on the cold metal table in the make-shift lab of a psychopathic woman with a swanky pair of goggles, in a floating city in the sky, Krieg cackled maniacally.  Stuttering breaths in between made him convulse and his good eye roll in his skull.

Axton lay his hand on his side-arm.  A nervous look crossed the soldier’s face.


	7. Sadistic Pissflaps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Krieg gets frustrated at being kept on lockdown. He's bored and his brain itches for Maya or murder - the two are not mutually exclusive requirements.
> 
> Finally, he lays his eye on her, but what the holy fucking hell did they do to her?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for taking so long to update this. I feel like I struggled to write this chapter, even though it's short and a bit of a set up chapter for another part of the series. Perhaps that's why I struggled with it, who knows. Also, I've started way too many writing projects, though I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this... us writers and our need to spin a hundred ideas at a time, am I right?
> 
> Anyway, I hope life is treating you all spectacularly well, and if not then it bloody well should. Peace and love :)

“Your eyes will be mine!”  Krieg said through a grin that was hidden by his other face.  The four-eyed woman gave good hate.

_That’s because you’re annoying her.  She’s a scientist; used to messing with things, not being messed with._

“And the _other_ siren promised he was safe?”  Tannis asked the soldier sceptically, pretending to ignore Krieg.  “Entirely too many sirens if you ask me.”  She muttered.

“Safe wasn’t what she said exactly.”  Axton folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the door frame, amused, while he watched Krieg playfully snatch at the goggles on her head.

She rolled her eyes and sighed, irritated by his antics.  “Ugh!  Can you take him away now?  I’m a very busy woman.  Mysteries of the universe to solve, breakthroughs in Eridium research to achieve, recipe for the perfect pancake to discover… that sort of thing.”  Her speech faded into mutterings as she tried to busy herself straightening papers that looked more like recruitment pamphlets for The Crimson Raiders than anything scientific.

“When Lil is ready to see him, is when he’s out of your hair, Doctor.”  The soldier was resolute.

Krieg chuckled as Tannis threw her papers down on the desk and stormed off behind a privacy screen, only metres away, where she began talking into her echo-recorder.

“In addition to his suffering being highly entertaining, the data I’ve collected from the Hyperion slag experiment that calls himself ‘Krieg’ will be invaluable to my Eridium slag research.  He seems uniquely resilient to its toxicity, forming a pseudo-symbiotic bond with the crude substance that could help me solve the problem of the spread of slag poisoning.”  She was rapt by the sound of her own voice.  “A question occurred to me today, while I was elbow deep in the crud from my patient’s rudimentary slag delivery system: what could Jack do with a second vault key?  Surely the goal of his first endeavour was the inevitable emergence of Eridium, erupting from the very ground?  If not, and it was just some happy coincidence, what is his goal for the second key?”

Krieg eyed the soldier questioningly but the man’s stoic expression gave nothing away.  Krieg didn’t know what the red siren wanted from him, if anything, or what it had to do with the four-eyed woman, but in keeping him apart from Maya they were fingering the trigger of a potentially dangerous bomb; his loosely-held grip on his rage.

“Don’t look at _me_.”  Axton said, shrugging his shoulders.  “She talks to herself all the time.”

The scientist was strange though, as far as scientists go.  The Little Man was quiet when she talked, almost like he was engrossed in her ramblings.

_She’s intelligent_.  The Little Man got defensive.  _And quite interesting._

“And they say I’m crazy.”  Krieg scoffed, making Axton blink repeatedly, surprised at the normality of the reply.

Lucidity was rare for the psycho but there were those undeniable moments where Krieg’s mind and his mouth were somewhat synchronised.  Maybe his verbal cypher reset itself once in a while, maybe he took a mental breath, maybe it was a tiny remnant left over from his once fully functioning brain.  Or maybe it was the same old bullshit that just happened to fit perfectly.

“I’d share the jellied fantasies of my youth but you stole my favourite song.  Now my meat is full of bullets and mY MIND IS FULL OF BACON!”  And there it was.  The gibberish that was quintessentially Krieg, yelled gruffly at no one in particular.

Axton rolled his eyes, not with disappointment but with amusement.

_If I didn’t know better, I’d say we’re growing on him_.  The Little Man’s words reminded Krieg of fondness, remembered from a time before vaults and purple pain.

The only warm feelings he had these days were for Maya.  His gore maiden awoke something in him that gave him a bigger sense of belonging.  Perhaps that’s why he stayed with her from the beginning, when they’d met at that dusty station out in the desert.  They were bound together then but didn’t know it, in a flourish of sparkling bullets and the satisfying ‘whump’ of his buzzaxe cleaving flesh.

 

Krieg also remembered the train.  He remembered the soldier.  And he remembered the other two; the gunzerker and the assassin.  Axton had one of those faces he’d like to grind into meat for tacos, maybe he’d be a little chewy for tacos but it would be better than looking at his smugness a moment longer.  Maya wouldn’t want him to rip the man’s meat off his chassis and stuff it into bread flaps though.  That wouldn’t do at all.

“Kaboom!”  Krieg chuckled, pointing between himself and the soldier.  He might have been trying to ask if the man remembered him, or tell him what lay in their future.  It didn’t much matter.

_Of course he remembers you.  There aren’t many that forget a face like yours, or indeed the ridiculous babble that falls from your mouth._ The Little Man said dryly.  _Though, he probably thinks you want to fight him.  Can you not just shut up for once?_

“The train.”  Axton nodded with a thin-lipped smile.  “Sure, that was crazy… sorry.”  He held his hand up in sincere apology, not wanting to upset the psycho.  “I meant it was a rough deal.  We thought you both had died.  Lucky for us you didn’t, huh?”

“Lucky you make terrible tacos.”  Krieg huffed as he slid off the exam table and set about kicking the scrunched up papers and bottles that littered the floor of the lab.

“You’ve never had my tacos.”  Axton mumbled, slightly offended.

 

 

Impatience itched at Krieg’s brain.  The combination of confinement and growing anxiety of being separated from Maya was starting to wear on his control.  He could leave the lab if he chose to.  He wanted to.  It would be easy to overcome the scientist and brutal but satisfyingly bloody work to take down the soldier.

_Then what?_   The Little Man chastised.  _Roam the streets of Sanctuary fighting everyone you see, in the hopes that you somehow find Maya?  You think she’ll thank you for ruining this for her?  You think she’ll leave with us?_

Maybe she would.  Krieg hoped she would, but he remembered the awe in her voice when she’d talked about the red siren, the way she looked at her like a god.

_Exactly!  Stay put.  Stay quiet.  Stay out of the way._

 

It had never been Krieg’s strong suit, staying out of the way.  All of the things The Little Man had just asked of him were things Krieg struggled with and, now that his other voice had just said it, he wanted nothing more than to be out of here and looking for his blue angel.

“There is no me, there is no you.  There’s only bile and belligerence, never enDING SADISTIC PISSFLAPS!”  He smacked himself in the temple hard enough to see stars, but not the good kind, not the ones in Maya’s eyes.  “GrrrrrrrAAAHHHHHH!  TWENTY-FOUR HOUR MURDER SPREE, WHO’S WITH ME!!?”

It was an understatement to say that Axton looked nervous.  He didn’t seem to like the sound of a twenty-four hour murder spree, especially one that could easily start with him.  Perhaps that’s why he agreed to go along with it.

“Sounds like a plan, if it keeps you happy.”  The soldier shifted his weight, not too casually readying himself for action.  “As soon as Lilith says you’re good to go, we can do whatever takes your fancy.”

“Well I have no further need for either of you.  So it’s not for my benefit that you’re still here making my lab look untidy with your filth and stupidity.”  Tannis emerged from behind the privacy screen.

“Not.  Fucking.  Helping.”  Axton ground out through gritted teeth, giving the Doctor an unimpressed scowl.

“I’ll drink the blood and eat the numbers, and let the bullets scrape me clean but never ever ever flash a sassy eye at the good Doctor!”

Axton’s frown deepened but he kept his mouth wisely closed.  Krieg didn’t know exactly where the threat had come from.  He certainly wasn’t keen on Dr Tannis.  She was just meat to him.  Annoying meat at that.  But something had pushed the course of his vocalising, gave him a point to make.  His other voice had thoughts too, and he obviously found the woman interesting, or was drawn to her intellect.

“NEVER A SASSY EYE!”  Krieg grumble-shouted.

_My sentiments exactly._   If The Little Man had arms to fold across his chest, he would have done so now.  _A woman of her intelligence deserves at least some respect._

 

“Well now, you seem a mite more civilised.  I thank you for defending me but I still don’t like you and I don’t want you in my lab any longer than necessary.  Please leave and let me alone to my research.  Go have your murder spree.”  She flapped her hands as if to shoo them both away.  “And don’t bother coming back unless you’re going to bring me things for my research.”

Krieg began to obey her, making a move for the door where Axton was stood, suddenly tense.  With the two glaring at each other, Krieg because the terrible taco man was in his way and Axton because he’d been ordered to keep the psycho on lockdown, neither of them noticed the spectator watching from the other room.

 

“Who’s going on a murder spree?”

Axton whipped his head around and Krieg stared past him into the gloom of Tannis’s reception room.  Krieg would recognise that voice even if it were a whisper from death’s door or a distorted collection of static on a corrupted echo recording.  The voice called him home, relaxed his nerves, and sent a thrill of belonging through his whole body.

“Blue.”  He whispered like it was a prayer as the woman herself stepped cautiously forward.

“You were going on a murder spree and I wasn’t invited?  That’s cold, muscles.  Real cold.”  Maya shuffled fully into view making Krieg’s heart thud painfully in his chest.

This couldn’t be her.  Couldn’t be what was left of her.  Her face!  What the hell happened to her face?  And her hair?  It had all fallen out!  Krieg stared at the sad smile on her pretty blue mouth and regretted every second of every minute they’d spent trying to reach this godforsaken place, every ounce of effort they’d spent saving it.  It had all been a waste.  They should have left Sanctuary to be destroyed, instead, she had been destroyed and it wasn’t anyone’s fault but his.  He gave her the slag and she took it willingly.  He should have listened to his other voice, should have told her ‘no’.  Instead, he’d risked his own life and broken her to the point that they’d turned her into something fucked up, something _wrong_.

One single tear slipped free of his good eye.  She was broken now, just like him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be the 'should I stay or should I go?' chapter where we find out of Krieg is welcome in Sanctuary and what Maya will do if that is not the case.


	8. Deign to Discard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maya faces down with Lilith and the decision about Krieg is made; will he stay or will he go?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been quite a while since I've updated anything since October was a high-commitment month for me but I should be back to writing again - not that I had a regular schedule for that anyway. I must be every reader's nightmare XD
> 
> Anyway, let me know what you think or if I've made any spectacular fuck-ups, and as always… enjoy!

Maya’s face looked greasy and gaunt.  Dark rings under her eyes made her stormy grey orbs look pale and lifeless.  She was drained and tired as she slowly walked with Krieg to the infirmary.  Now that it was whole again, he couldn’t help but look at her face, to check it wasn’t all a lie.  He didn’t trust it.

“I told you.”  She sighed, irritated by his constant staring.  “It was just a holographic appearance mod.”

He heard her the first time she explained to him why half of her face was missing, replaced with air and an eerie cyan glow.  The smooth bald pate was gone too, and her stylish cut was back, blue framing her face once again.

In fact, he’d heard her the first, second, third and fourth times she’d told him.  This was now the fifth.

“Why are you still looking at me like that?”  She seemed too tired to put much effort into her exasperation.

He continued to glare at her.

“You look like a baby that didn’t recognise its mother wearing a wig, or something.”  She grumbled, clearly tetchy and still suffering from her ordeal.  “You looked at me with less disdain when I told you I wouldn’t wear that necklace you made me from Skag eyeballs and gonads, for fucks sake!”

_Not your finest moment, admittedly._

“Sweet meats make the juiciest snacks.”

“If you insist.”  Maya’s irritation dropped when she chuckled, as if the memory of his gift was somehow more endearing than she’d first suggested.  It didn’t last long, and weariness stole over her again.

_It’s a wonder she ever tolerated us_.  The Little Man settled back, giving off a vibe of superiority.  _You ruin everything you touch._

“SHHHH!”  Krieg hissed at his other self.  “I have tasted your fizzy fear.”

It was true, The Little Man feared being left alone.  Even with Krieg’s big voice as a constant companion, his inner self craved the affirmation of friendship.  It was something Krieg and The Little Man would never agree upon, although Krieg had changed his opinion on that since the arrival of Maya into their lives.

Dutifully, Krieg trudged after her to whatever new hell she was leading him towards.  Doctors held little appeal to him, they often meant pain and people fiddling in his head.  Would she really ask him to endure more of that?

 

 

 

The smell in the infirmary hit him like a slug to the chest.  A traumatic past barely remembered.  Sickness, and a buzzing in his brain that he never thought would end until suddenly he wasn’t alone any more.  A vague and hazy memory of breaking so completely he thought that’s what death felt like.  Of course, he knew now that death was the painful shredding of every atom of his being, the unfathomably cold rush of said atoms being bombarded through cables and relays, and the pure unadulterated agony of his body forming, cell by cell, around nothing but a residual speck of consciousness that felt and remembered everything in between the last dark and this new light.

_Thank you, New-U, for each fresh moment of hell that allows our continued existence._

The astringent smell was a horror unlike any other, despite the familiar undertone of stale blood and bone dust.  Krieg hated hospitals more than he hated labs, though a combination of the two would be his worst nightmare.  All that was left to add would a be a whole bunch of people he wasn’t allowed to disembowel and that was him right there in hell.

That was exactly where he was, and there they were; the red woman, the nurse, the bird-man and the wall of meat that ironically called everyone else ‘slab’.

“Don’t thank the haemorrhoids.”  Krieg grumbled, drawing the gaze of the four interlopers.

_There are few occasions when anyone would ever think to thank the Hyperion Corporation, but staving off death indefinitely is worthy of consideration for praise, wouldn’t you say?_

 

“There you are.”  The unimpressed tone of Lilith’s voice and the determined with which she rested her fisted hands on her hips was a clear sign that the red siren was already over her gratitude for them helping save the city.  “What part of ‘bed rest’ and ‘that’s an order’ do you not understand?”

Krieg knew her words of concern weren’t for him, but he met the red woman’s gaze and held it anyway.  Was she trying to figure him out?  Push him to react?  Her annoyance was palpable and the air tingled with energy, almost as if she were about to burst into flames.

_She does that.  Firehawk, remember?_

“I went to check on my partner, only to find him in your science lab instead of a recovery bed.”  Maya’s angry flared as she spoke through gritted teeth.  Both women were tetchy, maybe it was a siren rivalry thing.  Maybe it was the Eridium come down.  “Why is that?”

“Tannis is our Eridium expert.  She knows more about the mineral than anyone.  Given his dependency on slag, I figured it was the best place for him.”  Red said dismissively.

Maya nodded, reluctantly accepting Lilith’s explanation.  Her eyes flitted around the others in the room.  What did the presence of Mordecai and Brick mean?

“What do you all want, then?”  Maya huffed down on her bed, tiredness winning over her stubbornness and need to appear strong.

Krieg moved himself to her side, not so subtly positioning himself protectively.  He remained standing despite the surprised looks from the Crimson Raider generals.  Lilith seemed reluctant to speak.

“I get it.”  Maya snorted bitterly.  “He’s not supposed to be here, right?”  The three Generals glanced amongst themselves.  “A psycho has no place in Sanctuary.  Too risky.  Too unpredictable.  The people are scared of him.  What if he kills someone?”  She mimicked Lilith unflatteringly.

“That wasn’t-”

“Wasn’t what?”  Blue interrupted her Red counterpart.  “Wasn’t what you were going to say?  You already said it, didn’t you?  When you thought I was out cold.  Don’t you think we’ve done enough?  Hasn’t _he_ done enough?”

Krieg watched Maya stiffen.  The fierceness of her temper was draining her strength.  He rested his hand on her shoulder and she leaned against him.  A gentle good touch that was designed to let her know it was ok.  He wanted to tell her that he wanted her to be safe and have a place she could call her own.  He wanted to tell her that he’d wait for her, wherever she told him to wait.  That he’d leave if she needed him to, just so she could stay.  But the words just didn’t work.

“Empty spaces for empty faces, and there’s a sparkly dance in my ribcage.”

Maya chuckled, drawing curious looks from the three Crimson Generals.

“You understood that?”  Mordecai scoffed.

“He said this place makes him nervous.”  Axton said, from his position against the door frame.  He always seemed to find a spot to lean on, lurking in the background.  Krieg wondered if he was sometimes as stealthy as the assassin.

“Really?”

“Close enough.”  Maya said flatly.

“Emptyfaceemptyfaceemptyface.”  Krieg chanted under his breath, swaying from side to side as the nervous feeling in his gut grew.  He knew this discussion would make or break what happened to him and Maya.  He wasn’t wanted, but she was.  They’d rewarded her with expensive holographic mods and the best medical treatment Sanctuary had, but for him they’d sent him to the scientist to be poked and prodded.

Maya stilled him with a light touch to his arm.

“The point is,” she levelled a stern look at Lilith, “the gifts and medical help tell me you want me to stay.  So, what were you hoping?  That I’d forget he was here, and you could just kick him out?”

“Not exactly.”  Lilith was done trying to beat about the bush.  “Doesn’t matter now, I can see you two won’t be parted.”

“So what does that mean?”  Maya’s eyes were piercing, not the wide-eyed fear Krieg thought he would see; she no longer feared being evicted from Sanctuary, she’d made her choice, and it was him.  She’d chose him.

Elation bubbled up in his chest, replacing nerves with giddiness.

_Don’t say anything stupid._   The Little Man warned _.  In fact, don’t say anything at all._

“Means he can stay.”  Lilith rolled her eyes, shifting her stance back to that sassy hip-thrust she did when she was in control.  “IF!  And only if, he reports directly to Brick daily for orders.”

“Okay, we can do that.”  Maya was cool, nonchalant even.  “He can stay with me, that way no one else will have to worry about sharing with him.”

“You’re sharing with me and Ellie.  We’ll find a room for him, someplace.”  Lilith made to leave

“But-”

“Does it look like this is up for discussion?”  Lilith scowled back towards the silent psycho.  “See to it that he understands his orders, he’s your responsibility unless he’s under orders from Brick.”

“Right.”  Maya sighed as the red siren left.

“Welcome to the team.”  Mordecai gave a half-hearted salute, following in Lilith’s wake.

“Come by the command centre after Nurse Nina signs off on both you slabs.  I’ll have a bed for him by then.”  Brick offered as much cheer as he could muster, which was more that either Krieg or Maya thought possible from the human wall.  “Lilith means well but this war with Hyperion has changed her.  She’s hard now, just like she needs to be.  It’s nothing personal.”  His large hands clapped both Maya and Krieg on the shoulder in a strangely kind gesture of comfort before he left.

When the nurse stepped forward, Krieg shrieked like a sissy girl, tipping the contents of her workstation onto the floor in an attempt to get away.  The clattering metal bowls and tongs hid his secondary shriek as Nurse Nina gripped him by the ear and dragged him off behind the privacy screen, where she drew inappropriate grunts and giggles from the psycho.

“I AM NOT YOUR GIGGALO!”  Krieg screeched before a squelching sound heralded a surprised gasp. 

Maya smirked as she kicked back on the gurney.  She would be there when Krieg got done and, in the meantime, the hilarious commentary he was providing from behind the screen had her biting back laughter.

“Little piggies visit brown town!”  Krieg cackled when Nurse Nina gave an irked sigh.  He was definitely getting back to his normal self.

Maya wondered how he would cope living in a place like Sanctuary.  She pondered what their future held as she listened to Nurse Nina talk.  The old battleaxe seemed to have quietened Krieg down somewhat but a sudden giggle had Maya’s interest piqued.  It came as no surprise that Krieg groaned right before Nurse Nina called her next instruction.

“Cough!” 


End file.
